


Before I Fall

by fictive_frolic



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Domestic Fluff, F/M, angsty love story
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-30
Updated: 2020-02-11
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:01:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22478317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fictive_frolic/pseuds/fictive_frolic
Summary: What happens as a chance meeting, changes everything.
Relationships: Thor/Reader
Comments: 9
Kudos: 20





	1. Chapter 1

“Thor, Stop!” your giggles are infectious, and he wraps his strong arms around you, stopping the swing and nuzzling into your neck. 

You come to him this way often. Crisp fall air and the smell of decaying leaves and fertile earth. He doesn’t even remember ever pushing you on a swing in the woods, but there’s something perfect about it. 

An aesthetic you would have liked. All jewel-toned leaves and your coziest red sweater. It was a moment you would have adored. But he hardly noticed the scenery. His face was buried in your neck. Soft hair caressing his cheek as his beard tickles your, throat making you giggle. You giggle, and something in his chest sings. 

It’s a pure sound. Like water running over rocks. A robin singing that spring is coming from the tree outside his window. Mischief and delight. Your big eyes looking up at him with adoration and devotion. The ‘I love you’ on your lips shines in your eyes before you can make a sound, and he tilts your chin up gently and kisses you. A slow sweet kiss. The kind of kiss he can’t get enough of. The sort of kiss he could spend hours lavishing on you when you would let him. When you didn’t have your own duties to see to. 

When he pulls away, you’re about to speak and Thor feels tense. At the edge of it all, he can feel himself being pulled away from you. There’s a screaming insect near his head and he knows. Knows in his heart what he knew all along. None of this is real. And he knows it isn’t because this is always where he wakes up. Always. Right before you speak. Right before you tell him the one thing he desperately needs to hear. Right before he can ask you what he needs to know to make it work. Make all of this work. 

________________

Six Years Earlier

Thor stood in line patiently, watching the people around him. He quite liked coffee shops. Midgardians at all parts of their day and all different jobs. Coffee seemed to be a universal equalizer. A little luxury most could afford. Even if it was only every so often. But this morning, something was… different. 

There was something in the air. Something that promised a bit of magic. Something that made him feel like something was coming. Something promising.

What he didn’t expect to find was a young woman. One with blue hair and a nose ring. A clean paintbrush holding her hair in a french twist. Jeans and boots. A flannel. You looked like the first breath of spring. You look like a promise, and he smiles. 

“My lady,” he said, sinking his voice to its most seductive rumble, his heart thrilling when you turn to look at him. Big doe eyes meeting his, an ocean of colors that draw him in. 

“Yes?” you answer, cheeks heating. Bemused but not displeased to be addressed by the blonde god. Even if he’s dressed to blend in in in a hoodie and a leather jacket. 

“Could you tell me what drinks are good here? I’ve never been.” he gives you his most charming smile and when you smile back he wants to kiss you. But, he doesn’t. Patience has won him many battles. Most notably in love. 

“I really like their mochas,” you tell him, pegging him as the kind of man that had a sweet tooth.

“Ah!” he said, eyes lighting up, “Mochas are chocolate, yes?”

“Yes,” you tell him giggling. That giggle makes his cheeks color. It reminds him of champagne bubbles and makes him long for sleepy mornings and late nights. It makes him want to take you by the hand and lead you to the closest table and murmur things in your ear to make you shy even as you’re giggling for him.

He makes a soft thoughtful sound and winks at you, “I think, I shall take your advice,” he says before turning to the girl behind the register to order. 

He thanks the girl and turns to look for you only to see you drifting out with a box of pastry in your hands. “Damn,” he mutters, taking his cup and hustling after you. “My Lady!” he calls, holding up a hand to stop you.

You look up from putting the box in the basket on your Vespa and smile, “No good?” you ask.

“Excellent,” he said grinning, “I just wanted to thank you… and maybe get your name. And a number in case I have need of more assistance.”

“Y/N,” you told him holding out a hand, “Y/N Y/L/N.”

“Y/N,” he repeats, taking your hand and kissing it tenderly, “I’ll remember that.”

“I am Thor, of Asgard,” he says, giving you a cocky smile. 

“I know,” you answer, winking, “Did you think I didn’t?”

He laughs. You’re cheeky and he likes that. He likes smart women. But as you get on your scooter and start to pull away he has a moment of panic, “Your number!” he calls.

“Just follow the flowers,” you answer laughing, starting to weave in and out of traffic.

“The flowers,” he mutters, smiling to himself. He looks around, looking for them but. The wet muddy earth is still too cold for such things. There’s nothing but the bare trees and tall buildings sprouting from the never-ending concrete. There was no hint of spring. Not yet… at least. He didn’t think. Until there was the barest hint of a breeze, carrying with it, the scent of fertile earth and rain. Apple blossom and something indefinable. Something that… sparkled. Something that made his nose tingle. 

“Flowers,” he said again, grinning to himself. And then, as the realization dawned, he laughed, “Mother,” he muttered, “I told you to stop meddling!” He didn’t have to hear her to hear her laughter. Still, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was supposed to find you. 

All he had to do was follow the flowers. Flowers. The flowers.

He pulled out his phone and fumbled to navigate the screen while holding his coffee. He had watched Natasha do it dozens of times and he still couldn’t do it. He still fumbled to even unlock the stupid thing. “Siri!” he demanded, “Where can I find flowers?”

He waited. Watched the tiny machine think. Watched it work. He wanted to find you now. This was a puzzle. It had to be. A quest to prove his worth. A quest he very much wanted to complete. 

“Here are places to find flowers,” a prim little voice tells him. 

Thor scrolls eagerly through the results. Looking for anything that seems like it was the most likely. Until he remembered. Remembered the paintbrush that you were using as ornamentation in your hair. 

A studio. Perhaps he could find you in a studio. So. He picked the top option. The first studio, and started running, dropping his mocha on the ground. He had to find you. He had to know what that feeling was. The sparkles that had burst in his chest. 

He had to know. You were meant for him and now he needed to know why.


	2. Chapter 2

Thor, in all his years, had never imagined New York could be that confusing. He went through every recommendation that Siri had to offer and several more that he had gotten from Lady Natasha. 

There was no way that he was ever going to find you. There was a never-ending city, and the cold concrete held not one hint of you. Not anywhere. Dejected, he stepped into a little book shop. Just to get out of the drizzle that was starting to fall. He knew it was being caused by his mood, but he couldn’t bring himself to will it to stop. 

It had been two days, and there was no sign of you. Of any flowers. Anywhere. Not a crocus, not a lily, not a bloody dandelion. The words look for the flowers seemed like a distant dream, and Thor was half convinced you were a dream. A ghost. That you hadn’t been real. 

He leaned against the column at his back, idly scanning the crowd. Looking for a little white Vespa. Looking for blue hair, that was precisely your shade. It felt like he was missing a piece of himself, and he hated it. 

He wanted to find you. 

Desperately. 

Because he couldn’t shake the feeling that if he found you, he’d be whole. He just needed to make you his. He needed to know. He needed to understand. He was ready to beg… Or call his Mother and have her seek you out. 

At least. Well. Maybe Heimdall. Maybe not his mother. She was anxious for grandchildren, and Thor would prefer you not be scared away. 

________________________

Now

Thor padded down the hall, grumbling to himself and trying to open his eyes the rest of the way. The house was cold, and there was no welcoming smells of coffee and sweet pastry to usher him into the day. 

There hadn’t been in so long that Thor almost didn’t remember a time when mornings weren’t miserable.

Of course, it wasn’t morning. It was Noon. But Thor hadn’t seen a sunrise in ages either. And “morning” was loosely defined as any time between his feet hitting the floor and getting enough caffeine in his system to feel alive. He hardly noticed the state of the house. The dust bunnies and boxes. The empty cans and dirty plates. 

None of it mattered with no one to come home to. None of it mattered when his life felt like a perpetual winter. And he was tired of waiting for the thaw. Waiting for the ice to crack. For the robins to return. 

He wasn’t sure what day it was or when he’d last left the house. He wasn’t even sure when he’d last changed clothes. But then, what good was going when this was the last place you were. The last place he could feel you. The last place he was happy. 

When the door bangs open, Thor doesn’t even flinch. 

His eyes, watery and dull. Glazed from the liquor, he’d slipped into his coffee. He didn’t glance away from the animated violence. Valkyrie didn’t speak. Not this time. 

Too busy and too irritated to have time to implore him to come to see the docks. To be seen by his people. To remind them that he’s still alive. She’s done it before. Brought him things to tempt him into taking care of himself. Healthy meals, sweet tea, pastry. But. He’d never touched them. They’d gone bad. Gotten stale. Been ignored in favor of less fussy fare. 

The Valkyrie pauses, like she does some times, in your kitchen. In her mind, it’s still your kitchen. The way your garden is still your garden. Despite the brambles and the weeds. And this time, the word to the prayer she wants to say, don’t come. All she can do is apologize. She knows you’d be furious. That you’d sweep into this house. Into New Asgard and whip all their sorry asses into shape. You had no patience for self-loathing and directionless whinging. But, Valkrie sighs to herself, I’m not you, dearest. And I don’t have the touch you did.

She doesn’t know how to help him. Not when she misses you too. Not when she’s trying to fill both sets of shoes.

“Right,” she says out loud, deftly clearing the fridge, “You’ve got groceries, anything else?”

“Beer?” Thor ventured. 

The Valkyrie rolled her eyes, “If Y/N were-”

“Don’t,” Thor said softly. His voice almost a growl. 

“She’d-”

“I know!” he said, tossing the controller away, “She’d be furious. She’d come in here and wring my miserable neck. And trust me, I’d fucking welcome it.”

The other warrior watches him and sighs, “This is the worst fucking way to remember her, Thor.”

“I don’t want to remember,” Thor growled, “I’d give anything not to remember.”

The Valkyrie sighed and looked towards the wedding picture on the mantle. The glass Dusty and cracked. The colors faded. But the emotions are real. It’s so beautiful. The one bright spot in the room. Literally. Spotlight by a single shaft of sunlight. The glass wasn’t cracked last week, and she wonders if he stumbled into it. And she wonders why he bothered to keep it if he wanted to forget that much.


	3. Chapter 3

Six Years Earlier

Thor lounged against a column and watched the drizzle that was coating everything. He knew it would probably freeze, and that. That made him almost sorry enough to will it into stopping. 

But the drizzle suited his mood. 

He’d turned the city on its head. He’d followed every lead. He’d even asked the Spider-ling to see if he’d known anything to make sense of your clue. 

It had been days of drizzly overcast skies. He’d looked and looked and looked again. And there was no hint of a white Vespa or blue hair. Or even a measly daisy. 

He longed for that first breath of spring. That moment when the ground under his feet thrummed with life and the trees flowed with sap, waking up from their long rest. The moment that had tantalized him so much when you smiled at him. What he had felt when you’d given him a little wave before you had raced away.

But he wasn’t even sure you had been real. That you weren’t just an elaborate daydream. Or a prank. He knew there were creatures on Midgard that still delighted in such things. And he wouldn’t put it past one of them to delight in sending him on a goose chase. But still. 

It hurt. 

You had to be real. You had to be. There was no way for the magic he had felt around you to come from anyone but you. It hadn’t felt like an illusion. You’d been solid. And warm. 

But, it seemed that this was a pipe dream. A fairytale that wasn’t destined for a happy ending. And as disheartened as he was, he couldn’t help but think of you with a smile. One brief interaction had left an indelible mark on his heart. And he knew that if he ever did manage to find you, he’d never let you go. 

He’d meant to go back to the tower. He’d stopped to take pictures with fans, smiling and accepting their flirting. He pushed you to the back of his mind. Or tried to. But he knew there was no real way to do that. The girls that were flirting with him held no appeal. They were boring. But as they drifted away, selfies in hand, Thor stopped and looked up. Hoping that maybe the drizzle would clear the fuzz out of his brain. 

It didn’t.

But it did draw his eye to a poster. He saw it out of the corner of his eye. It was bright. It stood out among the dreary, monochromatic nonsense. And on it, there were flowers. 

Stylized and elaborate. The type of thing a girl with blue hair might like. He took down the address and went to find it. He didn’t know what that building was. He didn’t know where it was. He just needed to find it. He had a good feeling about this one.

So he traced his way through the city. He looked for the flowers. Flowers and blue hair. And finally, after days of searching and longing. He saw you. The retired fire station. An old brick building that was stately in the face of all the ugly industrial beams. The doors were thrown open in a nimbus of glitter and fluff and feathers. The debris carried along on a breeze that swept through the doors. And in the middle of it all, standing on a ladder laughing and shouting down to a handful of people. They’re building something. And Thor stands to watch as they shift everything around. Watching the things taking shape. 

He walked closer slowly. Feeling shy. Suddenly reticent to draw attention to himself. What if it hadn’t been a clue? What if you’d been trying to dodge giving him your number? There are a lot of doubts. But, as his slow movement attracts your attention and you turn towards him with a beaming smile. He can’t breathe. 

The magic that crackles in this space makes his nose tingle. It feels like life flowing through the ground. A stream running through a wood. And it leaves him breathless and dizzy. 

He watches in slow motion as you scamper down the ladder and make your way over to him, "So,“ you say, grinning up at him, "you found me.”

“It seems so,” he rumbled, reaching towards you. He needs to touch you. He needs reassurance that you’re real. Really real and not an elaborate prank. And when he reaches towards your hand, his fingers lacing through yours, it’s reassuring. Your fingers are warm and standing so close to you, you smell like rain and apple blossoms. 

“Coffee?” you ask, smiling up at him.

“That sounds good,” he said, kissing the hand he was now holding. "And maybe, if I buy you a coffee, I could get your number?“

"Maybe,” you tease, giving him a wink.

“Maybe is better than no,” he allows, letting go of your hand to let you put on a jacket.

You fiddle with your zipper and reclaim his hand, "That’s always been my policy… That and "Sometimes it’s better to ask forgiveness than permission.“

Thor snorted, "Not the worst I’ve ever heard.”

“What’s the worst?” you ask, looking up at him.

“Behead first, ask questions later,” he answers.

You absorb this for a second and smile, "That does seem a little self-defeating, who told you that one?“

“My father,” Thor said, looking down at you.

“He sounds like he’s fun at parties.”

And Thor can’t help it. He laughs. 

__________

Now

Thor stares ahead blankly. He’s relinquished his controller for the moment and is only half-listening to his friends. The chatter is inconsequential and soothing in its way. He doesn’t have to think. 

He doesn’t have to really answer.

There is nothing in his brain but echoes. The fallen and the lost fill his brain like to persistent ghosts. Reminding him of the ghost stories you’d told him. Stories about young girls who had died on the way home and were doomed forever to try and find their way back.

He kills his beer and crushes the can, throwing it onto the pile. It’s a charade. He knows it. Valkyrie knows it. But being a drunk buffoon is easier than being king. No one expects things from him this way. 

His failures don’t mean anything. 

His failures are an expectation. Because no one expected him to ever take the throne. Odin had loomed so large and cast such a long shadow that no one had ever thought either of his sons would have to acesend the throne after him. 

It gives him time to lick his wounds. To hide in plain sight. He knows he’s a fraud. That you’d be disappointed in him. But he can’t. He just can’t claw his way out of the pit. Finding his way in the dark without you feels like an impossibility. 

It reminds him of Jotunheim. 

He should have known better than to fight his way into the middle of all the ice and snow. He should have known better than to give in to his own desires. His own need to self destruct. But. He didn’t. And now that he’s here, marooned in the middle of a frozen lake. Stuck by himself with nowhere to turn for warmth, he doesn’t know what direction to go.

As badly as he wants to reach out. As much as he wants to cling to every last piece of you he can find. How can he look his daughter in the face knowing that when he had the chance to save you, he didn’t?


	4. Chapter 4

Six Years Earlier

Coffee turned into dinner. Dinner turned into drinks. Drinks turned into Thor carrying you, giggling and blushing into your apartment.

For Thor, the time had no meaning. It had slowed to a crawl. And so long as he was with you, nothing else mattered. And it mattered less when you straddled his lap to steal kisses.

Your lips are sweet. You taste like wine and promise but he forces himself to go slowly. He knows that if he wanted to, he could have you naked and moaning for him in a few moments. He can feel the need in you. The desire for more from him. But, it’s been a long time since he’d had a woman he wanted this much. And he wanted to court you. Romance you. More importantly, he never wanted you to stop looking up at him all warm and starry-eyed. 

“You’re the most beautiful creature I have ever seen,” he rumbled, nuzzling against your jaw.

“You’ve got to be joking,” you murmur, breathlessly, “You don’t have mirrors?”

Thor laughed and swatted your bottom affectionately, rubbing the spot when you yelped, “Oh we do indeed have mirrors. But none of them reflect me as beautifully as your eyes do, my love.”

You nip his lip, scolding him, “You could at least pretend to let me win.”

“No, I could not. Not if it lets you go one believing any part of you isn’t beautiful,” he rumbled, pulling you closer for a lingering kiss. It was true that Thor had had many lovers. That he adored each one. But they weren’t you. He could be okay with a fling with them. With you that thought was untenable. He didn’t want there to be a moment ever again when he couldn’t have you looking up at him. Where he couldn’t go to bed at night and know you were safely asleep in his arms. 

After that, there is no talking.

Thor gives in to his desire to hear you pant his name. His need to make love to you until you’re well and truly claimed as his. Until he’s ruined you for anyone else because no one could ever love you the way he does. And it’s better than he could have hoped. As he finds release between your thighs over and over again. As he draws orgasms out of you one right after the other, until you’re trembling and barely able to help him. Until all he can do is fold you into his arms and hold you close until you sleep. 

Thor stays awake a long time, relishing the feel of his prize in his arms and the feeling of being perfectly satisfied. He wants to memorize the way you look, snuggled into his chest, cocooned in soft blankets. It makes him happy in a way he can’t explain. And when he does finally fall asleep, it’s the best sleep he’s had in ages.

_________

“Thor, what’s burning?” you ask leaning on the counter, peering into the smoky kitchen.

“Oh. Oh no!” he bolted to his feet and into the kitchen, yanking a pan of biscuits out of the oven. He looked up at you with a sheepish smile and inspects his burnt hand, “I’d wanted to make you breakfast.”

You sigh and smile a little, opening the window and coming to tend to his hand, “Babe, Didn’t you set a timer?”

“A timer?”

“They don’t have clocks on Asgard?” you tease, standing on your toes to kiss his jaw.

“I read the directions this time,” he said, wincing. 

You bandage his hand gently and kiss the wound softly, “It’s the thought that counts,” you tell him. “Better?” you ask, worried.

“Much,” he said, kissing your nose. He’s told you time and time again that he doesn’t need the tending to when he hurts himself, but when you do it anyway, he can’t bring himself to stop you. He likes the gentle touches. And he likes having someone to look after him. 

_____________

Now

Thor stares out the window absently. He watches a pack of children run by and he wonders if his daughter is out there with them. 

Likely not. 

She likes staying to herself. She got your introverted little heart. She likes her tutors. And art. And she doesn’t like him. He scares her. She’d screamed any time he tried to hold her as a baby and things hadn’t gotten any better as she got older.

He looked down at himself and sighed. It was probably for the best.


End file.
